Rating: 
Summary: not yet Tess, but complusory Hardy material
Review: Jude the Obscure is a sad book of legendary proportions. Not until reading did I realize how utterly depressing/tragic it is. This doesn't mean it's bad; Tess of the d'Urbervilles (also by Hardy) is also depressing yet it is moving, and is an excellent read. Jude the Obscure, at least for me, falls short of the mark.Jude the Obscure is about a man who wanders (..literally across all southern England) looking for happiness in marriage and life. He's a deep-thinker who is incredibly naive and, due to bad luck and the social neurosis of the Victorian era, finds himself moving further away from his objectives with each passing...page! Just when you think Jude's life is about to turn for the better it turns horribly tragic. While similarities to Tess of the d'Urbervilles abound, Tess's tragic turn was expected and plausible. Jude's misfortune comes from nowhere, and so it seems like Hardy is playing a cruel trick on the reader. So I disagree with the strongly opinionated reviewers before me. Jude the Obscure is neither great nor terrible. I find it to be rather formulaic Hardy, which for many readers will be reason enough to read over and over again.
Rating: 
Summary: The human experience at its lowest point... maybe
Review: I read this rather difficult novel in one weekend. The story of Jude Fawley's rather turmultuos life is engrossing and memorable. It seems that some people in life always make wrong decisions, and things never really go their way. Jude is one of those people. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the idealistic young man who only hoped for one thing, to study at Christminster and live a life in the church or university as a scholar. If I only had half the enthusiasm and drive that Jude started out life with, I would be successful beyond my wildest dreams. Yet Jude was never able to benefit from his hard work and study. He was constantly held back by family obligations, work, society and poverty. As depressing as Jude the Obscure is, I loved it from beginning to end. I felt that there are some valuable lessons to be learned from the book. Unconditional love, the ability to look beyond financial boundaries, and the value of hard work in order to achieve goals are some of the things that today's readers can walk away with.
Rating: 
Summary: This book ruined my life
Review: I read this book in high school because my demented English teacher wanted all of us at 16 to share her pain from a lifetime of mistakes. The book horrified me then, and it horrifies me now. As I approach 30 I deal with many of the issues that Jude had. Women, you can't life with them, you can't fit them in a blender. I don't want the resposibility of a family, but don't want to die alone. I think that a lot of my fear of marriage and commitment have to do with this book. Women can and will ruin your life, and getting married is the first day of the end of your life. It is crazy how my life has progressed so far to mirror this book, and I can only imagine that I will marry my current girlfriend that I know is wrong for me, and have a terribly unhappy life where my kids will kill themselves in a closet. Oh, did I put spoilers in? It's an old freaking book Jack so shut your pie hole. Did I manifest this book to become my life story? I don't know, but if I hadn't read it I truly belive that I might have had a chance of being happy in this life.
Rating: 
Summary: Jude is obscure
Review: Jude the Obcure is really a book about life. It involves Jude's search for happiness. Of course, he never quite achieves happiness because something is always in the way-preventing him from being happy. He starts out as a young lad living with his working-class aunt, dreaming that one day he may study at Christminster. The problem is as he grows he falls in love with a devilish girl named Arabella who tricks him into marrying her. Inevitably the marriage goes sour and he goes to Christminster, while she moves to Australia. Jude then meets his cousin Sue. He sets her up with Phillotson and they get married. Sue is then not happy and leaves to live with jude. As you can see this is really just a soap opera, but isn't life really just one big soap opera. Arabella then comes back to Jude with a son in Australia. Basically Jude feels responsibility to go back to Arabella and Sue goes back to Phillotson. Jude then dies soon after. It's quite interesting how Hardy devises his plot. It's quite a dark novel, filled with every character's problems. Through this book we see that what society thinks is the right thing to do isn't always best for everyone. The climax of the book is a horrifying murder-suicide of Jude's children. This is no doubt a book that makes you think about the psychological aspect of life. It's a good read if you like the fact that none of the problems actually get resolved and trying to solve problems only makes new ones.
Rating: 
Summary: It could have been better...
Review: Jude the Obscure, written by Thomas Hardy, is the story of Jude Fawley and Sue Bridehead. It follows the development of their love for each other and then their demise as lovers. I did not enjoy this book. I found its characters to be feeble and its theme twisted.
Jude Fawley is a penniless orphan raised by his aunt in a small English village. He is inspired by his schoolmaster Mr. Phillotson to pursue a goal of attending one of the great universities in the town of Christminster. His dream is crushed when the universities reject him because he was not properly educated, and more importantly because he is not of the upper class. While in Christminster Jude falls in love with his cousin Sue Bridehead who is a rogue in society. Sue is well read and opinionated. Before becoming acquainted with Jude, She had lived with a young scholar that loved her. The two were never married because Sue desired to live as comrades and not sweethearts because she did not love him. The entire novel follows the love affair of these two outcasts of society.
I found that I could not become emotionally attached to these characters. Jude and Sue constantly assumed the role of victim. For example, Sue promises to marry Jude's old school master Mr. Phillotson. She tells Jude that it is Mr. Phillotson's plan that Sue will complete a teacher training school, and then the two, as a married couple, will take a position at a double school (a school for both boys and girls). Sue acts like the victim of Mr. Phillotson's planning; she does not even consider that she could reject the plan just like she rejected the young scholar of her early days. After several of these incidents, I became desensitized to the suffering of the characters. Hardy lost his ability to manipulate my emotions by creating weak characters that never reacted to their surroundings, but were only acted upon by society.
Thomas Hardy must be given credit for building consistent characters. Both Jude and Sue remain predictable throughout the novel. This quality leant credibility to the characters, because everything they did fit with their personality. I could believe that the characters were truly spineless human beings. They never surprised me by doing anything bold or courageous.
I also found this novel to be distasteful due to the fact that I was left in a quandary as to the theme of the book after I had completed my reading. It appears Hardy was writing a criticism of the institution of marriage, but that can be debated. For example, Hardy pens the following statement by Sue as she and Jude attempt to marry in the Superintendent Registrar's office: "Jude-I don't like it here! I wish we hadn't come! The place gives me the horrors: it seems so unnatural as the climax of our love! I wish it had been at church, if it had to be at all. It is not so vulgar there!" (284) From this statement I would assume that Hardy is against marriage. But at the point in the novel that this statement is made, Jude and Sue had been living together for some time. It can thus be argued that this sentiment arose from not performing the marriage ceremony at the proper time. The theme of the novel would then be that marriage is necessary and must be done properly. I must confess that Hardy forces the reader to think and ponder in order to derive the themes from the novel. But I prefer a theme that is not so debatable.
I rate this novel as deserving two stars. Thomas Hardy creates consistent and credible characters. He also provokes the mind of the reader to ponder his novel. But his characters were cowardly and his theme unresolved, which is unsuited to my taste in literature.
Rating:
Summary: Hardy's best novel
Review: In my own personal quest to read as many of the "classics" as possible I picked this one up some years ago after seeing it referred to by many critics and writers as a beacon of excellent prose. I was pulled into Jude's world almost immediately and it took a while to escape it completely when I had finished the book. It's not pessimistic, it's just that Jude lives a tragic life and Hardy expresses it to the fullest. This book started me on a quest that didn't end until I had devoured each of his other novels and a biography of his life. As good as the others were, this one tops them all.
Rating:
Summary: The most depressing book I have ever read BUT.......
Review: Having said that, I think reading Jude the Obscure was a worthwhile experience.
It concerns the young man Jude, stonemason by trade, who dreams of a university education. His hopes and dreams are high at the beginning of the novel. But a series of events ensures that life does not have happiness in store for him. His academic aspirations are thwarted, he marries a vain girl in a moment of lust, and watches his real love - Sue - marry another. When he finally gives everything up, job security, social respect, his ambitions, to live with Sue "in sin", there is a brief, uncertain ray of happiness on them before tragedy stikes again. The emotions I went through while reading Jude's journey and ultimate disappointment in life were intense. I felt despair, sadness, shock, and was ultimately left feeling quite bitter about his plight. BUT, I enjoy reading books that wrench out your heart and make you feel deep emotion, whether happy or not. Few books do that well in my opinion. That fact that Jude the Obscure did that for me, even though the emotions were negative, was the reason I gave it 5 stars. If you don't like being depressed by what you read, it is probably wise to avoid this one. If, however, you want a truly momentous emotional experience, you should definitely take time to read Jude the Obscure. Just be aware that the feelings it arouses are not pleasant, but it will definitely leave you deeply moved.
Rating:
Summary: Consider the time period and you will be amazed.
Review: A widely challenged novel, Thomas Hardy's _Jude the Obscure_ encompasses issues and sides of humanity from a different angle; his issues discussed you will rarely see in 19th century literature. Yes, Dickens often did challenge poverty and social injustice, but Hardy goes so far as to scorn Christianity and gender roles. As I read through this horribly depressing tale, I was stunned by Hardy's ideas. This man was very much ahead of his time, as his morals and thoughts are still often disregarded in society today. Jude Fawley, a poor boy with humble beginnings and a vehement love of learning, has ambitions and dreams which only prove unattainable. (Instead of leading to eventual success in his novel, Hardy shows painfully well true difficulties and unrealities.) Jude struggles to fit into society, and acquires a wild relationship with his cousin. Though she is also a display of the often times frivilous and jealous nature of women, she defies many gender roles, and Jude tries to make her see as he does. Certain events turn this story unusually morbid, and Jude certainly ends his life as an obscure and unimportant man ... a depressing reminder that this is the fate which awaits us. One of my favorite characters of all time, Jude Fawley won my admiration for being the man who would not mold to society. His actions were noble, his ideas bold, his thoughts different, but because he could not submit, his life was tragic. Eventually he fell into obscurity, to merely an unknown name, meaning nothing to society on the whole. Consider the time period in which this was written, and you will be amazed by the dark and catastrophic events, the sexual nature, and the downplay of Christianity. Thomas Hardy has distinguished himself by understanding society rather than hiding the truth. Much like Jude, Hardy could not fit into the norm, yet took no shame in writing this book. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Hardy's best novel.
Review: I read it in college. It is still one of my 5 favorites. I felt identified with the characters so much that while reading it I felt the same pain and agony of the two heroes. If you have read before other Hardy books then you may think this is another sentimentalist "soap opera" book. But it is not. This is a masterpiece of literature. I recommend that you start reading Hardy from here.
Rating:
Summary: The book to start reading Hardy.
Review: I remember this book -one of my 5 favourite- specially for the impact that made on me when I read it back in college. If you read first other books by Hardy you may think this one is a little sentimental and "soap-operistic". But this is trully a gem, a work of art. I felt identified with the hero and I could sense the things and places that show in the whole book. It is so real, and the feelings are so real and strong that you suffer with the characters. Trully a masterpiece. You must read it.
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